J. Lee Thompson

J. Lee Thompson (1 August 1914--30 August 2002) was a film director, active in both British films and Hollywood. He was born in Bristol, England, and was a stage actor from age 17 and a playwright by 20. His entry into films was as an actor, and then a screenwriter. His directing debut came in 1950. Lee Thompson, as he was often known, made some critically well-received films in Britain, Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), Ice Cold in Alex (1958), Tiger Bay (1959), Northwest Frontier (1959), I Aim at the Stars (1960), before he was assigned to direct The Guns of Navarone (1961), as a replacement of original director Alexander Mackendrick. The success of that film won him entry into Hollywood, where he directed Cape Fear (1962), regarded as a controversial work back home in Britain and subjected to much censorship. Lee Thompson's work in Hollywood was varied and received mixed receptions, though some of his best films from this period, Return from the Ashes (1965) and Country Dance aka Brotherly Love (1970), were at least partly British. His best work were already behind him when in the 70s, he ventured into becoming Charles Bronson's regular director on several Hollywood potboilers, and taking on expensive "trashy" projects like The Greek Tycoon (1978), starring Anthony Quinn as a barely disguised Aristotle Onassis, and Jacqueline Bisset as Jackie Kennedy. Of Thompson's career, it must be said that Hollywood never fulfilled the promise that he had shown in his British films.